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Syria in Ruins

While much recent media attention has been focused on Hurricane Sandy and America's presidential election, Syria's horrific civil war continues. In some places, it has worsened. Aerial bombardment of civilian neighborhoods, deadly sniper fire, brutal street fighting, assassinations, and summary executions have become the norm in Syria. Cease-fire agreements have collapsed, rebel forces remain disorganized, foreign intervention is still hamstrung, and no path to peace appears to be forming yet. Britain is now reportedly looking for options to circumvent an arms embargo in order to supply rebels with weaponry. Syrian President Bashar al-Assad remains defiant, stating in an interview with Russia Today that he planned "live and die in Syria," adding, "I am tougher than Gaddafi." Collected here are images of this bloody conflict from just the past few weeks.

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A rebel fighter fires a gun toward a building where Syrian troops loyal to President Bashar Assad are hiding, while they attempt to gain terrain against the rebels during heavy clashes in the Jedida district of Aleppo, Syria, on November 4, 2012. The uprising against Assad started with peaceful demonstrations in March last year, but has since morphed into a bloody civil war. Activists say more than 36,000 people have been killed in 19 months of fighting.
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A Syrian man wheels a woman severely injured from an artillery shell that landed near a bakery, to a hospital for treatment in Aleppo, on October 23, 2012. Several were killed and a dozen were injured after the artillery shell that landed near a bakery in Aleppo.
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A street of shattered buildings is viewed partially through a mirror used by rebel fighters to keep an eye on their enemy's positions in the Karm al-Jabel battlefield in Aleppo, on October 28, 2012. Syria's air force fired missiles and dropped barrel bombs on rebel strongholds while opposition fighters attacked regime positions, flouting a U.N.-backed cease-fire that was supposed to quiet fighting over a long holiday weekend but never took hold.
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Syrian rescue workers evacuate a woman and her two children from a building targeted by a government forces air strike on the northern Syrian town of Al-Bab, 40 kilometers north-east of Aleppo, on November 4, 2012. An AFP correspondent reported three air strikes in close succession on Al-Bab.
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A Syrian rebel walks through a destroyed section of the Umayyad Mosque complex in the old city of Aleppo hours before the Syrian army retook control of it on October 14, 2012. Syria's army retook control of the historic mosque after fierce clashes with rebels in and around the area, a military official and the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
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Two Syrian rebels take sniper positions in the heavily contested neighborhood of Karmal Jabl in central Aleppo, on October 18, 2012. Violence persisted with rebels and loyalists of President Bashar al-Assad locked in battle for the northwestern town of Maaret al-Numan on the Damascus-Aleppo highway linking Syria's two biggest cities.
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Damaged buildings in Syria's northern city of Aleppo, on October 12, 2012. Aleppo, a city of some 1.7 million people just 50 kilometers (30 miles) from the Turkish border, has been the key battleground of the 19-month conflict since mid-July.
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Dead bodies lie in the middle of a road ten kilometers from the northeastern Syrian city of Aleppo, on October 12, 2012. A rebel offensive killed more than 100 soldiers in two days, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said, including 14 soldiers in an attack on an army post in southern Daraa province and two others elsewhere.
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An apartment destroyed by tank shelling, in a building in the Karm al-Jabel neighborhood after several days of intense clashes between rebel fighters and the Syrian army in Aleppo, on October 28, 2012.
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A frightened child stands in the street after a Syrian government artillery shell destroyed his family home in the Shaar neighborhood of Aleppo, on October 13, 2012. Syria's army retook control on October 14, 2012, of a historic mosque in second city Aleppo after fierce clashes with rebels in and around the area, a military official and an observer group said.
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A crowd gathers in front of a building and car damaged after a bomb explosion in the Mezzeh 86 area in Damascus, on November 5, 2012. A bomb attack in a western district of Damascus killed 11 people and wounded dozens more, including children, on Monday, Syrian state media and an activist group reported.
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Rebel fighters belonging to the Liwa Al-Fatah keep an eye on an enemy position from a school building during skirmishes with the Syrian army in the nearby Bustan Al-Pasha front line in Aleppo, on October 30, 2012.
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(1 of 5) A Syrian civilian tries to escape the line-of-fire after he was targeted by a Syrian army sniper while walking near the frontline in the Bustan al-Qasr neighborhood of Aleppo, on October 20, 2012.
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(4 of 5) Free Syrian Army fighters crawl on the sidewalk as they attempt to rescue a Syrian civilian who was shot twice, in his stomach and his back, by a Syrian army sniper in the Bustan al-Qasr neighborhood of Aleppo, on October 20, 2012.
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(5 of 5) Free Syrian Army fighters carry a civilian away from the line-of-fire after he was shot twice, in his stomach and back, by a Syrian army sniper while walking near the frontline in the Bustan al-Qasr neighborhood of Aleppo, on October 20, 2012.
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A woman hugs her daughter who was injured in an explosion in Hai al-Wuroud, as they wait in a hospital in Damascus, on November 6, 2012. Bomb explosions killed at least 15 people and wounded dozens on Tuesday in a Damascus district populated mostly by members of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's Alawite sect, opposition activists said. Syrian state media said an explosion hit the district of Hai al-Wuroud, in the northwest of the capital, causing an unspecified number of deaths and injuries.
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The body of a person (in purple) shot by a sniper from pro-government forces lies in a street in the Bustan al-Basha area as clashes continue with the Free Syrian Army in Aleppo, on November 2, 2012.
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A Syrian army fighter jet raids the northwestern town of Maaret al-Numan on October 19, 2012. Syrian jets hammered the rebel town on the second day of an assault in which the regime is accused of using cluster bombs, as peace envoy Lakhdar Brahimi landed in Damascus to press for a truce.
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Syrians who fled from the violence in their village walk between the tents at a camp for the displaced, in the Syrian village of Atmeh, near the Turkish border with Syria, on November 4, 2012. Most of the displaced people in the tent camp rising near this village on the Syrian-Turkish border are children. All have fled the violence of Syria's civil war further south. Many have seen violence themselves, some have lost relatives, and most have trouble sleeping and panic when they hear loud noises or airplanes, their parents say. The Atmeh camp was born of necessity about three months ago, say the local rebels who run the place, distributing tents and food aid provided by a smattering of aid organizations.
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Rawan Malek, 4, who fled with her family from the violence in their village, flashes the victory sign as she poses for a photograph inside a tent at a displaced camp, in the Syrian village of Atmeh, on November 7, 2012.
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In this frame grab from amateur video taken Thursday, November 1, 2012, and provided by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights via AP video, captured soldiers lie on the ground in Saraqeb, northern Syria. Later in the video, alleged rebels appear to kill the group of captured soldiers, spraying them with bullets as they lie on the ground. This image from video has been authenticated based on the video and audio translated and content checked by regional experts against known locations and events, as well as being consistent with independent AP reporting.
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A mobile rebel unit moves through rebel-held streets with a truck mounted gun during heavy fighting with loyalists to President Bashar Assad who launched a coordinated attack on rebels using mortar, tank and aerial artillery in the Jedida district of Aleppo, on November 3, 2012.
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A family member squeezes air into the lungs of an eight-year-old girl who was fatally wounded by a the machine gun of a Syrian government forces' jet at the Karm al-Aser neighborhood of eastern Aleppo, on October 31, 2012.
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Syrian people take cover as a second bomb explodes while civilians were undertaking a rescue attempt in a nearby building that was hit by a previous bomb during an air raid by government forces, on November 4, 2012, on the northern Syrian city of Al-Bab. An AFP correspondent reported three air strikes in close succession on the town of Al-Bab.
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